Limits
by lace and silk
Summary: A young girl is in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nothing seems to have happened to her. The team struggle to help her, and as tension begins to rise, so does something else – something with no limits.
1. Chapter 1

Limits

**Summary: A young girl is in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nothing seems to have happened to her. The team struggle to help her, and as tension begins to rise, so does something else – something with no limits.**

**Rating: T to be safe, for later chapters.**

**Author's note: This is set early on in the first series, but after cyberwoman. I'm trying to show that Gwen is a bit inexperienced at this point, and she also relies on Jack a lot to know what to do and to have all of the answers. This is unbeta'd, so I apologise for any mistakes! They are all mine, as much as I would like to blame someone else. This is also my first fan fic ever, so please review and tell me what you think!**

**Disclaimer: RTD owns Torchwood and its amazing characters, which is unfortunate seeing as he does not know what to do with them *cough* Ianto *cough*.**

"Gwen, get over here," Jack's voice crackled into life over the comms.

Gwen took one last sweeping look at the room around her, and then left it to see what Jack wanted. She turned from the room to see Jack watching Owen, who was crouched on the floor over what seemed to be a body. As Gwen drew nearer she could see that it was a young girl of about twelve. Her white-blonde hair was spread across the floor as Owen checked for a pulse.

"She's still alive, just unconscious," he said, standing up.

"What is she doing here? And what exactly does she have to do with the Rift?" Gwen asked.

"I don't know," Jack said distractedly. "Did you find anything in the other room?"

"Nope, nothing," came the reply.

"Ok," Jack looked around. "We need to get her back to the Hub, do some tests, find out what is going on here," he touched the comm in his ear. "Tosh, we're coming back to the Hub. Make sure you and Ianto have everything ready for our guest."

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The cogwheel door rolled open to admit Owen, Gwen and Jack, who had the girl hanging limply from his shoulder. Ianto came hurrying over to them, giving the girl a quick glance before turning his attention to his team mates.

"We weren't sure what exactly we needed to prepare for, but I think what we have done should be fine," Ianto said.

"I'm going to take her down to the cells. Have Tosh get ready to run a full bio-scan on her."

"Already set up and ready to go," Ianto replied promptly.

"Good. Then get everyone into the conference room for a meeting."

Ianto turned to walk away, when Jack called after him.

"And Ianto, some coffee would be much appreciated."

Ianto nodded, and watched as Jack slowly made his way down to the cells. Jack lay the girl's unconscious body on the cold stone bed in the cell, and watched her for a minute. Her hand twitched as she started to stir, and Jack backed off to give her a bit of space, as he knew how alarming it was to wake up in an unfamiliar place with a stranger staring at you. Her eyelids flickered, and finally opened as her eyes began to relay information to her brain. When she saw Jack her eyes widened, and she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging herself into a tight ball.

"Where am I? Who are you? What do you want with me?" she fired the questions out, panicked and scared.

"Shh, you're safe. You're in Torchwood, and we're here to help you," Jack said, allowing time for this information to sink in.

The girl looked at Jack with obvious confusion.

"Torchwood? Isn't that some weird special ops organisation?"

Jack chuckled.

"I guess that's one way of putting it," Jack gave her a calculating look, before saying, "I need to go now, but I'll be back soon, ok?"

"Do I have to stay here?" the girl asked, looking around nervously.

"I'm sorry, but you do. Rules and regulations."

The girl gave a small, nervous laugh.

"Torchwood was said to be many things, but a follower of rules and regulations was not one of them."

Jack smiled at her, and then exited the cell, pressing a button on his wriststrap to seal her in.

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"Her vitals are all normal, there are no changes in the air around her, she appears to be perfectly healthy," Tosh was reporting in the conference room.

"Yeah, but it's more than that," Owen said. "As far as I can tell, she is one-hundred percent human. Not an alien trace on her."

"But then what was she doing in an abandoned building filled with Rift activity?" Jack mused.

Ianto took a sip of his coffee, before saying, "Why don't we try talking to her? See if she can remember anything?"

"Good idea. Ok, Gwen, you go down there and talk to her. Tosh, I want it all recorded and analysed, and keep an eye on the bio-scan, just in case. Owen can help you with that. Ianto, you go and see if you can dig anything up in the archives similar to this."

"Are you sure you want Gwen to do the investigation? After all, her interrogation technique seems a bit…cosy to me," Owen smirked, remembering how Gwen had 'interrogated' Carys.

Gwen glared at him but otherwise ignored his remark. Jack clapped his hands together and said "Ok, let's go people!"

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Tosh and Owen watched Gwen peering in at the girl. She had a sympathetic look on her face, and the girl stared back at her with large eyes.

"What's your name?" Gwen asked softly.

"I'm Maggie. Maggie Hollis. What's your name?" the girl asked shyly.

"I'm Gwen Cooper, and I'm going to help you."

"Is it true what that man said? Am I really in Torchwood?" Maggie asked, with a slight gleam in her eyes.

"Yes, you are. You're not in any trouble, we just need to find out what you were doing in that building."

"What building?" Maggie asked, confused.

"We found you in an old abandoned building. You were unconscious on the second floor," Gwen peered at Maggie, trying to see a response to any of this.

She was not disappointed. Maggie clutched at her head and groaned.

"What's wrong? Are you ok love?" Gwen asked kindly.

"I…I'm not sure," Maggie shook her head, as if slightly dazed.

"Allright, what's the last thing you remember?" Gwen asked, in full police mode.

"I was with my friend, Jake, and we were…we were cycling. It was his birthday yesterday, and he had just got a new bike. A mountain bike, he's convinced that he needs it," Maggie took a deep, shaky breath.

Gwen smiled encouragingly she did not need to know all of this, but she knew that Maggie needed to figure out what had happened to her in her mind.

"I went with him on my bike, you see we always went cycling together. We cycled past a really creepy building that Jake insisted on exploring, but I didn't want to go anywhere near it. Jake teased me of being a scared girl," Maggie had a faraway look in her eyes and a soft smile playing about her lips. She looked up at Gwen then, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Well, I couldn't have him saying girls were cowards, so I lead the way into the house, even though I didn't want to go in. He knew it, so he held my hand," Maggie's voice faltered.

"And then?"

"Then…nothing."

"There was nothing in the house?" Gwen asked.

"No, there was nothing. No house, no Jake, no…me. Everything just stopped existing."

Gwen shivered.

"And then it all came back. Life, colour, people, things, when I woke up in this cell," Maggie said quietly, ghosting her hand over the wall next to her.

"Did you feel any different when you woke up here?" Gwen asked.

"No, I felt just like me, Maggie. I didn't remember any of this until now. What's happened to me?" Maggie asked, for the first time feeling truly terrified.

"I don't know, but we're going to find out." Gwen turned away from Maggie's pitiful face, and touched her comm. "Tosh, can you pull up CCTV around the building and go backwards until you see Maggie going in?"

"Yep, I'll let you know when I get something," came the reply.

"Gwen, if you're finished down there, I could use you up here," Jack's voice told her.

"On my way up," Gwen said, and left without a backwards glance at the young girl behind her.

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"So she doesn't know what happened to her?" Jack asked Gwen in his office.

"No, she just said that there was nothing."

"Nothing?"

Gwen stared at her hands.

"Have you ever come across something like this?" she asked Jack, looking up at him with big, hopeful eyes.

"No," he said simply, and Gwen's eyes dropped back to her hands.

"What do we do? There's nothing to fight."

"Of course there is," Jack said loudly.

"What? Nothing happened to her."

"Gwen, things don't just become nothing and then something again. Something changed her, changed her perception of the world, and so her mind must have taken time to readjust," Jack said.

"Oh…so what was it?"

"I don't know. We got nothing on the bio-scans," Jack was interrupted by Tosh's voice on the comms. "Gwen, I've got the footage."

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Deep below Cardiff, Maggie shivered in her small cell. She wished that she was wearing something warmer than her t-shirt, and she rubbed her arms up and down her arms. One of her fingers brushed against the material, and suddenly her hands were not rubbing against her skin, but against a thick wool cardigan. Maggie stared down in disbelief for a second, then jumped off the stone bed with a yelp, lifting her arms into the air as she jumped. The cardigan disappeared, and her t-shirt came back, but Maggie sank down against one of the walls, sobbing uncontrollably as she wondered desperately what had happened to her.

**This did not exactly come out the way I wanted it to, but I hope you enjoyed it. If you think I should continue please say so! And please review anyway, it's good to get feedback ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary: A young girl is in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nothing seems to have happened to her. The team struggle to help her, and as tension begins to rise, so does something else – something with no limits.**

**Author's note: This is set early on in the first series, but after cyberwoman. This is also my first fan fic ever, so please review and tell me what you think!**

**Disclaimer: RTD owns Torchwood and its amazing characters, which is unfortunate seeing as he does not know what to do with them *cough* Ianto *cough*.**

Chapter 2

Gwen, Jack, Owen and Tosh watched the computer screen as Maggie and Jake walked into the house. Jake was holding her hand comfortingly as she went ahead of him. As soon as she walked over the threshold, Maggie stopped.

"Maggie? We don't have to go in you know," Jake said through the computer speakers.

And then Jake disappeared.

"Whoa, what just happened?"

Tosh was typing furiously. The image replayed, and Jake yet again told Maggie that they did not need to go in. Yet again, he simply disappeared.

"Like he just became nothing," Gwen's voice shook slightly as she thought of what Maggie had told her.

"_There was nothing. No house, no Jake, no…me. Everything just stopped existing."_

Then a thought came to Gwen.

"Tosh, can you forward to the time when Maggie woke up here in the Hub?"

"Sure," Tosh said as her fingers once again glided across the keyboard.

"What are you thinking?" Jack asked Gwen.

"Maggie told me that there was nothing when she went in the house, but that it all came back when she woke up here. What if Jake came back then too?"

Jack nodded, and they both turned back to look at the computer screen.

"Jack!" a voice rang out across the Hub.

Jack turned around to see Ianto emerging from the archives.

"Did you find anything?" he asked the Welshman.

"Nothing. We don't know enough for me to spot anything similar to the girl down there."

"He's not there."

Gwen's despairing voice cut through Jack's mind.

"Even at the time that Maggie awoke?" he asked.

Neither girl looked at him, answering his question with silence.

"Ok, Gwen, I want you to go over there, see if you can find anything we may have missed. Also if there were any witnesses, they will need to be retconned. Tosh, if you can find out if someone has manipulated the footage or if Jake really did just disappear out of thin air. Owen, get Maggie up here. She's not dangerous as far as we know, but she is scared. Ianto, coffee and something for Maggie would be great."

"What are you going to do?" Owen asked.

"It's late; I think Chinese is in order," Jack grinned.

"Oh, thanks, get the food and coffee while I'm out!" Gwen smiled.

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Owen walked down to the cells to bring the girl back up. He was looking forward to the coffee when he got back up. At first he walked past the cell Maggie was in, but then he walked backwards after he spotted something huddled in the corner of the cell in his peripheral vision. Owen opened the cell door, and walked over to her.

"Hey," he said, gently placing an arm around her as he knelt down beside her.

He could feel her shoulders heaving with tears, and when she looked up at him he saw her tear-stained cheeks were red.

"Do you want to come up? We can get you a nice hot drink if you want?"

Her eyes sparkled and glistened with more tears.

"Ok," she said, and he helped her up.

When they reached the main part of the Hub, Owen felt her falter as she took in the strange place she was in. Then Owen was cursing in his head as that stupid pteradon was flying past them. Maggie screamed and clutched Owen's arm, burying her head in it. _Honestly_, Owen thought, _what were Jack and Ianto thinking of when they brought it back? They're weird, they are_.

Out loud he said "Don't worry, it won't hurt you. Come on, let's go see Ianto."

Owen guided her over to the small kitchenette. When they got there, Ianto handed Maggie a cup of hot chocolate, and gave Owen his mug full of Ianto's finest. Owen grunted in thanks, and then asked "Why do we have hot chocolate?"

"Jack likes it," Ianto replied smoothly.

"Should've guessed," Owen muttered under his breath.

He was just thinking how Gwen would have had an opinion about a secret organisation protecting the world from aliens having hot chocolate had she been here. Lately a lot of his thoughts had been on her.

"Hey!" Jack called as he came bounding over to them. "Chocolate is one of human's best creations, and I like anything that's hot," he winked at Owen.

Owen just stared at him, while Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Jack, we have a young girl here who is not used to…you, so I implore you, please, just keep that in mind," Ianto said.

Jack glanced down at Maggie.

"You like hot chocolate, don't you?" he asked Maggie.

Ianto rolled his eyes again.

"Yeah," Maggie replied, her eyes shifting from one man to the next.

"Well, there you go," Jack said. "Although, as much as I love hot chocolate, some coffee would be good right now."

Ianto handed Jack his coffee in his mug, and then went to take Tosh her coffee.

"How are you feeling?" Jack asked Maggie.

"A bit…well, weird really. This wasn't exactly how I saw my evening going. When can I go home?"

"Where do you live?" Jack asked.

"A couple of streets down from the house you found me in. My parents will be wondering where I am, I only said I was going on a bicycle ride," Maggie said. "I just want to see my parents."

Jack looked at Owen.

"Why don't you do a quick medical after Maggie finishes her hot chocolate?"

Owen nodded, and Jack walked up to his office.

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Gwen sat in the SUV waiting for the traffic to move as she sipped at her coffee Ianto had given to her in a flask. Her phone began to ring, and she fumbled around in her jacket pocket for it.

"Hello?" Gwen said when she finally found it.

"Hey! Gwen, it's the man of your dreams!" Rhys said cheerfully on the other end of the line.

"Hey, how are you?" Gwen smiled, then stopped as she thought of the last time he had said that.

And what had happened with Owen afterwards.

Rhys' voice cut through her thoughts.

"Good, but when are you gonna be home? Haven't seen you in a while."

Gwen's face became even darker.

"I don't know, might be another late one."

"Ok, well, I guess I'll see you later then."

"Ok, bye."

"Love you."

Gwen hung up the phone, and sighed. It was true that she had not seen Rhys for a couple of nights, and a small part of Gwen did not mind. This was the part of her that kept thinking of Jack and Owen. The part of her that craved the adrenalin rush like a drug. Torchwood had got inside of her, just like Suzie said it did. Gwen was now feeling impatient with the traffic, wishing she had a clear stretch of road so that she could speed away and leave all of her problems behind her.

_Focus Gwen_, she told herself.

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"Chinese is here," Ianto told Jack, and turned around to go back downstairs.

"Wait!" Jack said.

Ianto turned around, and looked at Jack questioningly. Jack walked around his desk, and pulled Ianto close to him. Ianto shifted away, and started clearing up Jack's desk. He did not like to admit to himself how affected he was by the other man. Especially after Lisa's death. He turned around, and found Jack watching him with a raised eyebrow.

"Sir?" Ianto asked politely.

"Let's go eat," Jack said after a pause.

Ianto nodded, and followed the Captain down the stairs.

Tosh, Owen and Maggie were already sitting down in the conference room with the Chinese spread out across the table. Owen was talking loudly while Maggie listened and Tosh smiled into her food. When Jack and Ianto entered, Owen stopped what he was saying, and made a disgusted face.

"I don't even want to think about what you two have been up to."

Jack raised an eyebrow, about to ask Owen why he was so interested, when Ianto coughed pointedly, his eyes flicking to Maggie, who was looking thoroughly confused.

"Don't worry, they're always this weird," Tosh said, smiling at Maggie.

Maggie smiled broadly back at her. They all settled into a comfortable silence as they ate. Then Maggie started to feel bad. She knew how worried her mum and dad would be, and she wanted desperately to see them, to forget everything that had happened. She tried to pick up a spring roll with her chopsticks, but it slipped away from her. She tried again, becoming frustrated as it yet again slipped from her chopsticks. Then she gasped, looking down into her hand. Everyone looked up as they heard a loud clatter, and Maggie ran out of the room. Owen ran after her, calling her name, and Jack and Ianto followed. Only Tosh noticed the silver fork on the floor beneath the seat that Maggie had just vacated.

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Gwen finally pulled up next to the abandoned house. She could see the two bikes that had been there this morning, and she saw the words 'Mountain Bike' written proudly on one of them. The other one was bright pink, and Gwen smiled, assuming that Maggie had not quite let go of her childhood yet. She walked into the house, carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. But she did not need to, as there was nothing there. She checked through all of the rooms, but it was exactly the same as it had been the last time she was here. She walked out of the building, and then looked across the road. Gwen hated to retcon people, but it had to be done.

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"Maggie, what just happened?" Owen asked when he reached the autopsy bay.

Maggie was sitting on the bed in the middle of it, swinging her legs, a look of guilt on her face. She could not tell Owen what had happened, could not admit that she was a freak. So she looked up at him and lied through her teeth.

"Nothing, I just got a bit overwhelmed by it all."

Owen sighed.

"I know it's a lot to take in, but we're going to help you, ok?"

And then she was crying into Owen's shoulder; because how could they help her if they did not know what was wrong with her. And if they did know, would they want to?

**I'm just waiting for it to get more interesting. I probably won't be posting for a couple of days now – sorry! – but I need to think about how I want to proceed. If you have any ideas, please review, might speed the process along :)**


	3. Author's note

Author's note!

Sorry to get anyone excited, but I just felt that I had to apologise for not posting anything in so long! I have glangela fever, and have only just started going back to school, so obviously there is a lot of work to catch up on as I am nearing my GCSE mock exams, and am still unwell. Also, I'm meant to go to Greece on Saturday for a week. But while in Greece I promise to write some more chapters for you all!

xxx


	4. Axed

I'm so sorry but I have decided to discontinue this fic. I have just completely lost my muse, and have had a seriously bad case of Torchwood-writers-block for a while now. If anyone wants to write a chapter of this story, they could post it on their account as a continuation, and I could post it as the next chapter to this story but obviously make very clear who the credit goes to.

xxx


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